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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief
Josh Grispi's removal from this month's UFC 136 card was thought to be due to an injury, but a new story from The Boston Herald sheds some new light on why the young featherweight removed himself from the card.
It wasn't an injury, but two major happenings in his family life in close succession that had his head anywhere but the cage. First, his son Josh, Jr., was born on August 12, and two days later his father was rushed to the hospital to remove a brain tumor.
"It was crazy. Then they found out it was the worst, most aggressive cancer you can have,” Grispi explained. "Now he's on chemo radiation, and I'm trying to help out around the house with the baby. It's just been crazy.”
"I was a mess as soon as I knew he needed brain surgery. I was just thinking it was his first grandson and he was just born and now with all this stuff, I want my dad to be there with his grandson. There was just a lot of stuff going through my head."
His father is continuing to receive treatment at Tufts in Boston, Massachusetts, and though this summer's end had him out of sorts, Grispi hopes to get back into the cage soon. Not only that, but he's hoping to get back to enjoying what he does in the cage as well.
"All I can think about is I don't want my dad to see my last two fights be losses," Grispi said. "I want to get back in there. But I don't think I should have even fought those two fights. I should have just taken care of myself when I needed to, but I needed money. I was having a kid so I needed to save up more money. I was fighting for the wrong reasons.”
"Now I want to get back into it and love it again and not look at it like a job anymore. My other (pre-UFC) fights, it wasn't like a job. I was just having fun, going in there and doing my thing. Then I put all this pressure on myself and (the losses) happened. I'm looking to get back in there as quickly as possible, but not to the point where I can't go in there and have a blast like I usually do."
Penick's Analysis: Grispi's two-fight skid came as a major shock this year, especially when he was lined up for a fight with Jose Aldo on January 1 before Aldo suffered an injury. However, Grispi made the right call in pulling out of UFC 136, and what he's had to deal with mentally over the last several months is daunting. I wish the best for his father in his treatment, and hope that when he does return he can get back to what he was doing in the WEC. He was an immensely fun fighter to watch during his time in the UFC's former sister promotion, and he just hasn't seemed like the same fighter in his two UFC bouts. He has plenty of time to turn things around, and for him I hope he can get his head back to where it needs to be in order to be successful in the UFC.
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Jamie Penick, editor-in-chief
(mmatorcheditor@gmail.com)
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